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I might as well write another entry while I'm sitting at 1/3 game that started very poorly, some impatience in the air, maybe ranting keeps me away from trouble.
I wanted to write a brief summary of the time in New Zealand. From my last Vegas trip I flew to Hawaii where I stayed 1 night just to recharge, after which I flew to Auckland right the next day.
We had an apartment in a high rise right in the center of Auckland. It was definately not a fancy place, a bit rundown building but interior was ok.
Later we found out that the building has a lot of state owned flats for addicts in rehab and there was indeed all kinds of Interesting neighbours who you didnt necessarily want to tell that you play poker in your flat
We wanted to have a separate house somewhere in the nature to grind, but it was hard to arrange one with our short time frame and tight-ish budget.
The apartment turned out to be ok with a great state owned gym/swimming pool and food options nearby, so all the pieces to support a solid grind were present.
The trip itself didn't offer anything interesting, the aim was just to grind our asses off. I played around 25 days in a row, and clocked over 100k hands between 23rd of dec and Jan 20th.
I have never been a good volume grinder online and this was by far my hardest stretch. I was running quite bad I think, not in bb or chip ev wise, but I feel like I deserved to win more, i lost many heads ups to horrible players in top heavy bounty tourneys etc.
I did win one hyper turbo (midnight express in stars es) for 10k which is a crazy flipfest tourney so can't really complain in that sense. After that bink I took More shots to 50€+ tourneys but bricked everything so the end result from the 10 weeks was not satisfactory.
For the first 3-4 weeks i was feeling good, I kept positive mindset by meditation and affirmations.. I felt pumped most mornings.
We woke up around 5am every day, went to the gym and hit the tables around 6.30. The session usually lasted until 1pm To 4pm depending on the deep runs.
After maybe 3-4 weeks I started to feel impatient. The runbad was getting a toll on me. At this point I visisted Auckland casino and hopped into a 1-3 game. Man, that feeling! I was so excited, hyped, pumped to get to live Cash. I realised that this is Wlwhat I want to do, not sit on front of a screen all day building stacks with tilt creeping behind every bad flop, lost flip or cooler.
I left the casino after a good winning session and booked flights to Vegas. After that my winrates dropped, I didn't feel any passion for playing online anymore. My head was filled with visions of daily Vegas life and my focus was on planning out a water proof blueprint to erase my previous Vegas pitfalls.
My buddies that I was in NZ with also made me question my desires. One of them ran super good, yet not many days passed from the scores and you could here the loud cursing when ever an important run was shattered. Cursing and emotions are fine, but if it is a daily routine do I really want to spend my days feeling pissed and intensely stressed all the time? (I fought with these same emotions in my own head every day, but seeing other people's struggles from the outside made it sink deeper into me).
The third guy also is very succesfull, he rarely has a losing month and makes heaps of money yearly, topping his previous year at least 3 years in a row. He says he is addicted and that he just needs to get to grind online if hes been away from tables more than a week. So you could call that a passion. But albeit the success and drive for the game the uppermost emotion seemed to be ungratefulness and feeling of injustice.
You can obviously have and will have those same emotions in cash games as well (like I've been having while writing this ). But, I believe that for me, if I can reach my full potential in cash versus mtts, I can achieve a happier healthier life and also better financial situation.
If your winrate is high enough, those tilty toxic emotions reduce cause obviously you are winning more often and losing rarely. In mtts, no matter how good your winrate is you will take a beating day after day for long stretches of time. Some beasts are able to do that and keep the grind going. I think I could do that as well if I really wanted to, but I would feel like shit and like I'm just wasting my life away.
So i have made a decision to drop all tournament besides WSOP main until the end of ept Barcelona. Always when I get the momentum shift in Cash, I find a nice tournament to play and mess up that focus.
The goal now is to forget the existence of the surrounding world until the end of August. There are no parties, no dating, no hanging out with friends. Only if it is to stratetically recharge I will do some of these things. But other than that it's all about Cash games and things that support my success at the tables.
That is why I am very happy to be here alone this time. People are a distraction. Very rarely you can find such a connection and similar goals with someone that it will increase your ability if you live under the same roof with someone. Especially if your goals are ambitious and therefore daily rhytms are strict and need disclipline to hold onto.
I can't remember how many times my plans were completely shattered because my mind wasn't strong enough to say no to random nightly discussions when I should be going to bed, meditate, or stretch before sleeping. Or the times when my wsop flat mate asked me to join him smoke weed with him and his friend when I know I dont't even like that stuff in the first place. (ended up with nausea and vomiting and passing out, time well spent )
Or the worst of all, my friend introducing me to fortnite and asking me to play with him nearly every day when I was on my last Vegas trip (this really got me Off the rails when I had my first big losing session and ended up grinding the streets of fortnite for couple days).
Nobody forced me to do any of these things, so I'm not saying I would be the better guy here, I was often the iniative to things to happen as well. They just don't happen as much when you are alone.
If you are a weak person, you just can't afford distractions around you. And as of now, I am weak. Once you have strengthened your mind enough, you can start having more room to manouver. Unfortunately when it comes To me I am at the beginning of building up my character, so I will have to take the lonely road for some time. But I'm excited to do so because I know that I will be a happier guy at the end if I endure a bit of suffering first.
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